


What's for Dinner?

by tuppenny



Series: Growing Together [12]
Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Fluff fluff and more fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-09
Updated: 2018-04-09
Packaged: 2019-04-20 12:01:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14260548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuppenny/pseuds/tuppenny
Summary: An unremarkable Saturday in the Kelly household, in which Katherine spends the day out with friends and Jack takes care of his 2-year-old daughter.





	What's for Dinner?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [passionslipsaway](https://archiveofourown.org/users/passionslipsaway/gifts).



> For Anna, who suggested I write about Ellie and Jack drawing together (hopefully this is close enough?)
> 
> J&K are 29, Ellie is exactly 2 1/2, Crutchie is 28, Daniel is 4, and Eddie is 21 months. Albert is probably... 26 or 27.
> 
> Rosie is married to Crutchie, Chaya is married to Davey, Connie & Edie are Katherine's sisters.

**September 1911**

Katherine was out for the day with Connie, Edie, Rosie, and Chaya, leaving Jack and Ellie alone to amuse themselves. Jack didn’t particularly like that Katherine was maintaining her usual routine despite being due any day now, but, beyond a little bit of moping (which he’d indulged in mostly in order to weasel extra kisses out of his wife), he’d kept his mouth shut. She was in good hands with her friends, labor usually took hours, and, as Katherine had told him time and again, pregnant women went on with their daily routines all the time. 

He’d muttered that that was because most women _had_ to, and she didn’t _have_ to, so why couldn’t she take advantage of the leisure that most people would kill to have, but… there was no way Katherine would listen to that argument. Luckily, he’d had the good sense to mutter it too quietly for her to hear. Her pregnancy had been much easier this time around, yes, but she was still touchy and swollen and very, very tired of being the size of a small moon. Best to just go along with what she wanted and try to keep Ellie from squeezing her too tight. 

They’d spent the morning in Central Park with Albert, Crutchie, and Crutchie’s two sons, four-year-old Daniel and nearly two-year-old Edward. The three men had shot the breeze while watching the children chase each other in circles, laughing and stumbling over the uneven grass.

Daniel was the ringleader of the little ones, of course, telling the other two that they would be playing tag and they were both it. Ellie had only a vague idea of what this meant, and Edward none at all, but as soon as Daniel started running, they began following along after, Ellie shrieking in excitement and Edward imitating Ellie.

This kept them all entertained until Ellie tripped over her own feet and went sprawling, skinning her chubby knees and getting a mouthful of grass. Edward thought this was part of the game, and so he stopped, dropped to his knees, and stretched out on his stomach, peeking up to make sure he was doing it right. Daniel, however, pulled up short and watched, wide-eyed, as Eleanor blinked and looked around, trying to figure out what had just happened. Jack raced over, hoping to make it to her side in time to laugh and distract her before the tears kicked in, but he wasn’t quite quick enough, and Ellie, having finally decided that no, this wasn’t fun—in fact, she was surprised and hurt and unhappy—let out an ear-piercing scream. 

“Ellie-girl! Ellie, shh, baby, c’mere,” Jack said, setting her on her feet and brushing at her knees, which were now visible through her torn tights. “ ‘S okay, Bunny, Daddy’s gotcha, ‘s okay, shh,” he said, as Eleanor continued to wail. He hugged her tight, inadvertently muffling her next few screams with his chest, but as soon as he pulled back she sucked in a deep breath and screamed again, her face red with distress. “Well, I think that’s it for us t’day, boys,” Jack said over his daughter’s cries. “Guess we’ll hafta do lunch another time.”

“Looks like it, Jackie-boy,” Crutchie said, painstakingly pulling himself to his feet. “Danny-boy, Eddie— time ta go, kiddos.” 

“Aww, Papa, do we hafta?” Danny said, flopping down in the grass. “We just got here!” 

Albert snorted; they’d been at the park for at least two hours. “Listen to ya pops, Dan,” he said, crossing the grass and picking up Edward, who was starting to whimper in response to Ellie’s continued cries.

Daniel sighed heavily and got up, walking slowly to Crutchie’s side. “Okay.” 

“I’m proud of ya f’r bein’ a good listener, Danny,” Crutchie said, ruffling Daniel’s hair.

Danny blushed, and then he tugged at Crutchie’s hand. “C’n I say bye ta Ellie, Papa?”

“ ‘Course, kiddo,” Crutchie said, smiling as Daniel ran over to Jack and Eleanor. 

“Bye, Ellie,” Daniel said, very seriously, patting Eleanor softly on the back. “I hope you feel better soon.” 

Ellie just howled, so Jack jumped in, saying, “Thank you, Danny. I’m sure she will. Go on an’ eat your lunch, now.” 

Daniel nodded and returned to his father’s side, and Jack hefted Eleanor up in his arms, grunting slightly as his left knee creaked under him. “Okay, astoreen. Let’s get ya home, clean ya up, an’ get some food in ya belly, hey? Food sound good?”

Ellie screamed again, although Jack could tell that now it was for attention rather than from shock or hurt. “I don’t think we have any screams f’r ya ta eat at home, Bunny,” Jack said, pretending to be sorry about this fact. “How about ya eat… laughter?” 

Ellie paused to think, realized she’d stopped crying, and screamed once more.

“No?” Jack said, patting her back. “How about… snuggles?”

Ellie blinked and pursed her lips, looking up at Jack before sticking her thumb in her mouth.

“Not interested in eating snuggles, hey? Hmm… how about… tickles!” Jack said, suddenly shifting one hand from her back to her stomach, tickling her mercilessly.

Eleanor giggled in spite of herself, leaning backwards in a hopeless attempt to escape, and soon she was shrieking in laughter again, throwing her weight forwards against Jack’s chest and wrapping her arms as far around him as she could (which wasn’t very far at all). “Stop, Daddy, stop! No more!” 

“Okay,” Jack said, tugging one of Ellie’s short, strawberry-blonde ringlets. “Well, Ellie-girl, if ya don’t wanna eat tickles, what _do_ ya wanna eat?”

“Ummm…. Paint!”

“Paint? Ya can’t eat paint, baby, your insides’ll turn yellow!”

Ellie giggled again. “Unnawear!”

“ _Underwear?_ ”

Ellie nodded and returned her thumb to her mouth, eyes twinkling, waiting to see what Jack would do.

“You can’t eat _underwear!_ What would Mommy say?”

“Yum!” Ellie said, smiling. “Mommy say yum. Unnawear is deeeelicious, Daddy! Pwomise.”

“Hmm, I don’t think I believe ya. Pick somethin’ else ta eat, Bunny.”

Ellie looked up at the sky, thought, and yelled, “Couds!”

 “ _Clouds?”_ Jack’s silly voice made Eleanor laugh again, and she nodded. Jack pulled a ridiculous face and said, “Ya can’t eat _clouds_ , you silly goose! Pick somethin’ else.”

They played this game all the way home, Ellie’s skinned knees long forgotten, father and daughter completely wrapped up in enjoying each other’s company and the golden September sun.

 

*

 

After lunch (a sensible ham and cheese sandwich for both father and daughter, complemented by apples they’d picked on a recent weekend trip Upstate with Katherine’s mother and sisters), Ellie began to get cranky. Jack was expecting this; a tired Ellie was a fussy Ellie, and early afternoon was her usual naptime, anyway. “Let’s go read some books, Bunny,” he said, helping her down from her chair at the table. 

“Read my cat book, Daddy,” Eleanor said, reaching up for Jack’s hand and tugging him down the hallway after her. She toddled into the nursery and then ran over to the bookshelf, pulling down book after book. “Cat book?” She said, beginning to whine. “Don’t see my cat book! Want my cat book!” 

“It’s okay, astoreen; we’ll find it.” 

“Find it, Daddy! Want my cat book!” Ellie plopped herself down on the floor and pouted up at Jack, her curls falling into her eyes. Jack frowned slightly; they really needed to find a way to sweep Ellie’s hair back in a way that wouldn’t make her scream. They’d tried hairbands and headbands and bows and clips, all to no avail, and at this point he was pretty sure the only remaining option was to give her a butchered haircut. Katherine would never agree to that, of course, but if he just went and did it without asking her…? No, that would be mean… “Where my boooooook!” Ellie wailed, throwing herself sideways on the floor and starting to cry.

“How ‘bout a different book, Bunny?”

“Nooooooo!” 

“Okay, well, lemme go check Mommy an’ Daddy’s bedroom, baby; maybe you brought it in there?” He hoped fervently that she had; he knew full well that Ellie couldn’t sleep without her cat book. Or, well, she _could_ , but only once she’d spent at least two hours crying about it first. Jack sighed. Some children had safety blankets; Eleanor Kelly had a safety book. 

“Noooooo!"

“I’ll be right back, astoreen,” he said anyway, pushing himself to his feet and jogging into his bedroom. Sure enough, hidden under the rumpled covers of his bed was Ellie’s beloved cat book. He heaved a sigh of relief and picked it up, waving it at Ellie as he returned to the nursery. “Look what I found!” 

Ellie sniffled, lifted her head slightly, and then beamed. “My book!” She scrambled up and hopped to pull the book from Jack’s hands. “Read my book, Daddy,” she commanded, pointing him over to her bed.

“Please?” Jack reminded her.

“Peas,” Ellie said, standing behind him and pushing at the backs of his legs to get him to move.

“Okay,” Jack said, settling himself in Ellie’s bed and waiting for her snuggle up next to him. She pillowed her head on his arm and jammed her feet in his stomach, forcing him to adjust slightly so that he didn’t have the wind knocked out of him when she wiggled, which she inevitably would. “Ready?”

“Peas,” she sang, and popped her thumb in her mouth.

Jack flipped the book open in an easy motion and began reading. “Mitzi the kitty lived with the Kellys…” It was a simple rhyming book, written by Katherine and illustrated by Jack, given to Eleanor on her second birthday. It had been a smash hit with Eleanor, which was unsurprising, given that it combined her three favorite things: Books, Mitzi, and her parents. Ellie mumbled the words along with her father as he read; she’d memorized the entire thing ages ago, and they often found her ‘reading’ the book on her own, lying in bed with Snugglebun the stuffed animal or sitting on the couch next to a sleeping Mitzi. Jack and Eleanor recited the final words together: “…so Mitzi the kitty was Ellie’s best friend. That was the story, and this is the end.”

“There you go, Bunny,” Jack said, kissing Eleanor on the head. “Sleep tight.”

“Night night,” Eleanor said, releasing Jack so that he could leave the room. She reached up for the book, which he handed to her, along with Snugglebun, who had spent the morning lying on the floor. “Fank you,” she mumbled, clutching the book and bunny to her chest and rolling onto her side, her eyes already drooping closed. 

Jack slipped out of the nursery, leaving the door ajar so that Mitzi could go nap with Ellie; sure enough, as soon as the fluffy black cat heard the creak of the nursery door, she came bounding through the apartment and darted by Jack in order to go curl up against Eleanor’s back. “Night night, Mitzi,” he heard Ellie say sleepily, and he smiled before padding down the hallway to spend the next two hours preparing dinner and finishing up some freelance assignments.

 

*

 

Eleanor woke back up around three, and she surprised Jack by leaving the nursery on her own and wandering into the living room. “I ‘wake,” she announced, book in one hand, Snugglebun in the other, and Mitzi trailing along behind. 

“So you are,” Jack said, straightening up from his work and sliding out of his chair to give Ellie a hug and a kiss. “How’d you sleep?”

“Good,” Ellie said, rubbing her eyes with the hand that held Snugglebun. 

“I’m glad,” Jack said, ruffling her hair. “What do you want ta do now, little one?” 

“I a _big_ one,” Ellie reminded him. “I gonna be a _big_ sisser.” 

“Oh, that’s right. Well, then, what do you wanna do now, big one?” 

“Ummmm….” Ellie said, dropping Snugglebun and sticking her thumb in her mouth. She looked around the room, her eyes settling on Jack’s drafting table. “Draw!”

“Okay, baby,” he said. “Go sit at your desk, then.”

Ellie nodded and pulled out the little chair at the toddler-sized desk that her grandparents had bought her. She picked several colored pencils out of the small wooden pencilbox that Rosie’s father had made and lined them up carefully at the edge of the desk, the way Jack always did with his own art supplies. Then she set her book gently on the floor and patted it lovingly before turning to the blank page in front of her. “Daddy?” She said, looking up at Jack, who had returned to his work. 

“Mhmm?” 

“Hep me?”

Jack brushed his nose as he tried to figure out why the sketch in front of him looked a little lifeless. “Help you how, Bunny?” 

“Draw me a fower, peas?”

“Draw you a flower?” 

“Mhmm!” 

“You know how to draw a flower.” 

 “Daaaaaddy!”

“Uh uh, Eleanor, you’re a big girl. You can do it.”

“Nooooo! You do it.”

“I’m not gonna do it, but I can remind you how, if you want. Want me to remind you how?” 

“Yeh.” 

“Okay. First you draw a circle.” 

“Wike dis?”

“That’s right. Now you draw the petals. What shape are petals, Bunny?”

“Ummm… square!”

“No,” Jack said patiently. "Try again."

Eleanor giggled. “Cat!” 

“Now you’re just being silly!”

“Mommy!” 

“Mommy? You’re going to draw a flower shaped like Mommy?”

“Noooooo,” Ellie said, laughing. “Gonna draw a fower for my baby! Gonna have petals wike dis,” she said, taking the pencil and drawing lots of lines radiating out from the vaguely oval-shaped blob in the center of the page.

“What a beautiful flower, Eleanor. It’s for the baby?”

“Yeah. A fower for my baby. Gonna give it to my baby when my baby comes.” She worked for a while longer, adding more and more lines in different colors until the page was practically full of wobbly scribbles, only some of which were vaguely attached to the center of the supposed flower. “When my baby comin’, Daddy?”

“Soon, Ellie-girl.” 

“Today?” 

“Maybe,” Jack said, erasing a few lines and trying them again. 

“Tomorrow?” 

“Maybe,” Jack said, adding some cross-hatching to the roof of the house he was drawing.

Ellie laid down her own pencil and looked up at him. “When?”

“I don’t know.”

She drew her eyebrows together. “Why not?”

“Babies don’t tell you when they’re gonna come, astoreen,” Jack said. “They just come. You came in the middle of the night when everyone was asleep.” 

“Was Mommy asleep?”

“No, Mommy had to wake up so you could come.” 

“Oh.” She thought for a moment, then looked back up at Jack. “Was you asleep?”

Jack laughed, thinking back to the chaos of Eleanor’s birth. “I was at first, but then I woke up so I could say hello to you as soon as you got here.”

Ellie smiled. “Hi, Daddy.”

“Hi, baby,” he said, his voice tender. 

She turned back to her project and hummed before settling on the green pencil for the next set of 'petals.' “I’m gonna be ‘wake when my baby comes,” she said decisively. “Wanna say hi to my baby.”

“The baby will like that, Ellie-girl.”

Ellie smiled again and added a few more lines to the already-full page. “Done!” She crowed, flapping the sheet at her father. 

“It’s beautiful, Ellie.” 

“Fank you,” she sang, and then stood to tug at Jack’s pant leg. 

“What is it, Bunny?” 

“Hep me, Daddy,” she said, sounding adorably pitiful.

“Help you what?” 

“Hep me wite my name.”

Jack raised an eyebrow. “You know how to write your name.”

“Daaaaaaaddy,” Eleanor whined, wrapping her arms around his leg and leaning her head against his knee.

“Come on, Bunny. What letter comes first?” 

“E,” Ellie grumped, huffing her way back to her seat and grabbing a blue crayon.

“That’s right. Then what?” 

“L,” said Ellie, heaving a put-upon sigh. They worked their way through the rest of her name together, with Ellie needing only occasional help from Jack as to how to form the letters. Her Es still had far too many lines attached to them, and sometimes they were backwards, but the results were impressive for a newly two-and-a-half-year-old. After all, four-year-old Daniel was only just now learning to write his name, and the entire extended newsie family agreed that Daniel was a sharp one. 

“That’s my girl,” Jack said, rising from his chair to bend down next to Ellie and give her a hug as she finished. “You did such a good job writing your name, astoreen.” 

“An’ drawrin’ my fower,” Eleanor added, waving the page in his face. 

“And drawing your flower,” Jack agreed, steadying the sheet of paper and looking at the multitude of squiggles that Ellie had drawn. “What kind of flower is it?” 

“Suffower!” Ellie yelled, tossing the page into the air and hugging Jack.

“Beautiful.”

 

*

Katherine came home shortly before dinner, and as soon as Eleanor heard the key in the lock, she put down the picture book she'd been reading, pushed Mitzi off of her lap, and ran to the front door. “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy, you home!”

“I _am_ home, sweet girl,” Katherine said, putting her shopping bags aside and squatting down with her arms wide so that Ellie could fling herself into them. “Mmm, baby, I missed you,” Katherine said, squeezing Eleanor tight and pressing a kiss to her daughter’s hair. “Ooh, you smell good; did Daddy give you a bath already?”

“Mhmm!” Eleanor said, wiggling to escape Katherine’s grip. “Mommy, come, come see my drawrin’!” 

“Oh, did you make a drawing?” 

“Yeh! Me an’ Daddy maked drawrins!” 

“You and Daddy made drawings? Did Daddy help you?”

“No!” Ellie bounced up and down in front of Katherine and then scampered down the hall, pausing at the door to the living room to see if Katherine was following. “I maked it awwwww by mysef, Mommy! Come see!”

“I’m coming,” Katherine said, pausing briefly to poke her head into the kitchen and greet her husband, who was finishing up dinner. “Hello, dear heart,” she said, smiling. “I’m on the way to see our daughter’s latest masterpiece.” 

“In case she asks you to guess, it’s a flower,” he said. “A sunflower, to be precise.”

“Thanks for the tip,” she said with a wink, and then she returned her attention to an increasingly impatient Eleanor. “Okay, Bunny; show me your drawing, sweetheart.” 

“Tah dah!” Eleanor exclaimed, pulling the piece of paper off of her desk and displaying it with pride.

“Oh, muffin, what a beautiful sunflower!”

“Yay!” Ellie yelled, throwing the drawing aside and running to give her mother a hug. “I maked a fower for my baby, Mommy!” Then she pulled back and gave Katherine a very serious look. “I gonna be ‘wake when my baby comes, Mommy. Gonna give my fower to my baby.”

“That’s wonderful, Eleanor,” Katherine said, reaching to pick up the piece of paper and study it more closely. “And look, you even signed your work, just like Daddy does.”

“Yeah!” Eleanor beamed. “See, Mommy? E-L-L-I-E. Dat says Ewy." She smiled again, adding, "Daddy heped me.”

“Well, it’s wonderful, darling. What a nice picture you made! The baby’s going to love it, I’m sure.” 

Ellie did a little dance and then bent to kiss Katherine’s stomach. “ ‘S my baby movin’, Mommy?” 

“Not right now, sweetheart. The baby’s sleeping right now.” 

“Ohhh,” Ellie said, nodding in understanding. She pressed her ear to Katherine’s belly and held her breath for a moment. “My baby says night night,” she said, pulling her head away and looking Katherine right in the eyes. “Shh, Mommy,” she added, lifting a finger to her lips and making an exaggerated, spitty shushing noise. “Baby’s sweeping. Gotta shh, okay?” 

“I’ll be very quiet,” Katherine promised. “Should we go eat dinner while the baby sleeps?”

“Okay,” Eleanor said, sneezing loudly and then clapping her hands over her mouth. “Uh oh,” she said, eyes wide. “Baby ‘wake now?”

“No, Bunny, don’t worry; the baby’s still asleep.” 

Eleanor smiled and poked Katherine’s stomach. “Night night, baby. Dinnatime, Mommy!”

“Dinnertime indeed,” Katherine said, taking Ellie’s hand and walking with her to the kitchen. “I love you, sweet girl.” 

“Wuv you, Mommy,” Ellie said, dropping Katherine’s hand and hoisting herself up into her booster seat. “Wuv you, Daddy,” she added, looking up at Jack as he brought serving bowls to the table. “Wuv you, baby!” She called across the table. “Peas come soon!”

“Listen to your sister, baby,” Katherine said, shifting uncomfortably in her chair and rubbing at her aching hips. “Please come soon.”

“Listen to your sister, but don’t imitate your sister,” Jack amended, returning to the counter for a basket of rolls. “Come with less drama.”

“Amen,” Katherine said fervently, unfolding her napkin and placing it in her lap. “What’s for dinner, dear heart?”

Jack opened his mouth to speak, but Ellie gleefully interrupted him, yelling, “Unnawear!” She looked from Katherine to Jack and stuck her thumb in her mouth, waiting to see what they would do.

“ _Underwear?_ ” Katherine echoed in a silly voice.

“Yeah!” Ellie started giggling. “Daddy maked unnawear f’r dinner!” 

“Yummmmmy,” Katherine said, wiggling her eyebrows at Eleanor.

Eleanor cackled and flopped sideways, thrilled that her mother was playing along, and Katherine began laughing, too, delighted at how amused Ellie was. Jack blinked, scratched his head, and looked from his wife to his daughter. “She… she _said_ you’d say that,” he marveled. “She said it to me this _morning!_ How on earth did she know?”

Katherine simply laughed harder at that, and Ellie's grin grew even bigger. “Unnawear is deeeelicious, Daddy!” The toddler said, stretching her hands out to her parents so they could pray and then start the meal. “Pwomise!”

**Author's Note:**

> If you have Kelly household scenes you'd like to see, let me know! I still have a fair number of prompts that I'm working my way through, but I think I might do vignettes for the rest of the school year rather than start my next multi-chapter story, so if you have suggestions, I might end up writing them :)
> 
> (Also there are two more Kelly children to play with, if you'd rather see something later in the timeline)


End file.
